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The Earth Is on Fire

As this is being written,
reports indicate that the worst is yet to come for the people of Australia,
whose land literally is burning up all around them.

The apocalyptic images of
families being driven from their homes, wearing face masks and eye goggles
because of the acrid smoke that is darkening the daytime sky, and then being
evacuated by boat from the beaches, are something out of a science fiction
film.

But now, in 2020, reality
has caught up with science fiction.

The Australian bush fires
are the apex of what has been a sad, sad year for our planet. The Australian
fires already have destroyed about 15 million acres — an area almost as large
as West Virginia, more than triple the area destroyed by the 2018 fires in California,
and six times the size of the fires last summer in the Amazon.

The fires not only have
rendered large areas of the continent uninhabitable for humans, but they also
have killed incredible numbers of wildlife — some reports estimate half a billion
creatures have perished — threatening some species with extinction.

The bush fires have killed
24 persons and are causing health issues for every person in their path,
especially those with existing lung diseases. The air quality in Canberra, the
capital city, on New Year’s Day was the worst in the world thanks to the smoke
cloud that is as wide as Europe and now envelops much of the Australian
continent.

The problems attendant to
the bush fires are not confined to Australia. New Zealand, which is more than
1200 miles across the ocean, is enduring toxic air pollution levels. In
addition, the carbon that is being released by the burning of the bushland will
increase even further the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere that are the
principal cause of global warming and climate change.

The influence of a changing
climate is now evident in each day’s global weather pattern, according to a
study published last week in Nature Climate Change.

The study employed a new
technique to analyze daily patterns of temperature and moisture across the
globe. It found that the locations of above and below average temperature and
moisture have been distinct from natural variations on every single day for
almost a decade.

The bottom line is simply
this: The world is getting hotter day-by-day and therefore bringing a dramatic
change to our climate and environment. Some things, such as the massive fires
in Australia, are dramatic and noticeable. Others, such as the gradual melting
of the glaciers, are subtle, but their effects on the degradation of the planet
are just as devastating.
It should be apparent to every thinking person
that we are getting very close to a point of no return in terms of climate
change. However, with governments across the globe in the hip pockets of the
special interests who are opposed to the drastic measures that are needed to
prevent further degradation of the environment, it is difficult to be
optimistic about the future of our planet.